Henry Hamilton (1734-29 September 1796) was Lieutenant-Governor of Fort Detroit under Great Britain and a commander of the British Army in the Western theater of the American Revolutionary War.
Biography[]
Henry Hamilton was born in 1734 in Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland. He was raised in County Cork before joining the 15th Regiment of Foot of the British Army and fighting in the French and Indian War, including the attack on Louisbourg in 1758 and Quebec in 1759. In 1775, he left the military for a political career and became Lieutenant-Governor of Fort Detroit and an Indian agent. Hamilton established good relations with local Native Americans, and he became known as "the Hair-Buyer" for his purchase of American scalps during the American Revolutionary War. In 1779, George Rogers Clark forced him to surrender by fooling him into thinking that he was outnumbered, and in 1781 he returned to London after being exchanged. In 1782, he became Lieutenant-Governor of Canada and Deputy Governor of the Province of Quebec, and he would serve as governor of Bermuda and Dominica until his death in 1796 on Antigua.